If You Feel Behind In Life Watch This
Shelley Young argues you're not behind because you're lazy, but because you're in the wrong vehicle. She spent years building a failed equestrian clothing brand while working low-wage jobs, then realized her effort was misdirected. She offers three questions to find where your work compounds: what are you oddly good at, what would you improve at alone, and where does effort multiply.
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If you feel like everyone your age has figured something out that you have missed, I need to tell you something. Because feeling behind makes you think the answer is to just work harder or just to catch up. I felt like this for years. But here is the truth: you can work the hardest out of everyone you know and still feel behind, because effort was never your your problem. Effort was never my problem. The vehicle is. And there's no real timeline anyway. Let's be honest, everyone is so unique. Some people move quicker, some people move slower. It doesn't mean that they're better or they're worse. Everyone has a different path in their life, essentially. And I spent years feeling completely behind and exhausted on the wrong path. So let me show you how to tell if you're in the right vehicle or the wrong vehicle and what actually moves you forward. Because for me, I felt lonely, I felt isolated, I felt like I was doing everything wrong, but I wasn't. Honestly, it was a pretty simple fix, and when I found it for the first time, I actually felt at peace, and I want you to feel that too. Let's start with where this feeling even comes from in the first place, because it's sneakier than you think and it creeps upon you. Nobody is born feeling behind. We learn it. We learn it from scrolling. We're learning from watching everyone else our age hit these crazy milestones from a timeline that someone else has decided is normal. Settled by this age, sorted by 30, and the second your life does not match that invisible schedule, you feel like you failed the test that you never agreed to take. take. But the timeline isn't real. Trust me on this one. It's just the most common one. The most common does not mean it's yours. Remember, you're unique. Your journey is unique. There is no timeline on your unique individual life. That doesn't mean, right, that you shouldn't have goals, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't feel upset if something didn't go your way. You're human. You're ambitious. Most likely, if you're watching this, you want to achieve things. That's normal, but you shouldn't put yourself in a chokehold of these ridiculous standards because you're comparing yourself. Of course you're going to see the highlight reel of someone else's life. Of course you're going to see 20-year-olds becoming millionaires because that's what the algorithm is showing you on social media. But it doesn't mean that you are a bad person or that you are a failure if you haven't achieved that. I used to think I needed to be a millionaire by XYZ age. I used to think I needed to have my dream car by XYZ age, and I would actually set myself up for failure by having this mindset and putting these unrealistic standards on myself. Yes, I had those as my goals, but it was only when I really channeled into making changes into my daily, weekly, monthly habits, that's when my goals caught up. So instead of being just fixated on the end result, I actually was able to build a plan for myself to allow me to work backwards, to allow me to actually turn these goals into my life. Now here's the bit that actually changed things for me. For the longest time, I thought being behind meant I needed to try harder, but I was already trying so incredibly hard. Like, I used my weekends, I didn't always go out on social events, I would literally dedicate my whole life to trying to build my dream life. I spent 4 or 5 years building business, an equestrian clothing brand. I did literally everything. I raised investment for it and it still failed. I literally had other people believe in my vision and it still failed. And then I was nannying for £12 an hour, feeling like I was completely wasting my 20s. I was not lazy. I was not behind. I was not, not working and not, not trying hard. I was just In the wrong vehicle. My effort was going towards the wrong thing. Think of it like this: you can be the hardest, most driven person alive, but if your car only goes at 30, you're never overtaking anyone. The problem was never your engine, it was your car. This is one of the hardest realizations, in my opinion, because this really means you have to evaluate your situation and most likely go against the grain of your family and friends in order to actually change that vehicle. Because you're brought up following a path, you're brought up following a similar vehicle to everyone else in your community, in your inner circle. But maybe you don't want that vehicle, maybe you don't want that end result. If you look at maybe your parents, as much as you love them, maybe you don't want to build a life like them. Or if you look at your boss, the highest person up in the company, maybe you just don't want to end up there, and that's okay. But that is going to mean you need to change your vehicle, and that is going to mean you're going to have to take matters into your own hands. And this is why just work harder is such bad advice when you feel behind, because if you're in the wrong vehicle, going faster doesn't help. It exhausts you quicker. You burn yourself out sprinting in a direction that was never going to get you there in the first place. I did that for literal years. I kept thinking that the answer was more hours, more hustle, more discipline, which one put me in my masculine energy big time, and all it did was make me more tired and convince me more that something was wrong with me. Speed only helps once you actually get pointed in the right direction. So I want to take you to my lowest point because I think you might recognize it. I had a £6,000 car bill. I had no idea how I was going to pay it. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I could barely afford my rent. I had to ask my parents for help paying my rent. I was in tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt from a business that failed. I was a nanny working for just above minimum wage, and I felt So depressed, so lost. Like everyone else had been handed an instruction manual and mine got lost in the post, like quite literally. It was horrific. I was sad all the time. I was miserable. I ended up having no motivation to do anything, even take care of myself, go to the gym, because I felt so sad with where my life has ended up. But that exact moment, as awful as it was for me, that finally made me do something about it. That was almost like my breaking point. And I remember saying to my mum the day I made a decision, if I want something I never had, I have to do something I've never done. And that reason— and that, that sentence, sorry— and that was the reason that this all happened. I kept on repeating it to myself because life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. And in that moment, I was pushed into a corner where I had no choice. I had to make a change. I had to do something about it. I was in debt, juggling paycheck to paycheck, and I was drowning. And I felt so sorry for myself for long enough. I had to pick myself up and do something about it. So how do you actually find the right vehicle? I was struggling so long to find that vehicle, and I think a lot of people do well. First of all, what I did is ask myself a couple questions. So for you, number one, what are you weirdly good at, even if it's never paid you? For me, it was that I could sell. I literally sold my business that was making zero money, that was a brand new startup without a product at the time, to investors that wanted into my business. And when I really thought about it, I just hadn't pointed that skill set to anywhere useful yet? Number 2, what would you happily get better at even if no one was watching? And number 3, where could the effort you already have compound instead of capping you out? Those questions point you to your vehicle. Your effort has never been the issue. It just needs to go somewhere. So please, please, please hear me out on this. You are not behind. You were just handed somebody else's timeline and pointed in the wrong vehicle, and that is not your fault. That is how the system is designed, and if you wanna build your dream life, and if you wanna have that freedom, then you have to do something about it. The day I changed mine, everything I'd been working for finally started to move, and it can move for you too. It is not too late. You were never the problem. I promise you that. It was the vehicle you are in. So if you want my honest experience, my journey of how I found my vehicle and accelerated into it, I'm gonna leave the link below. No pressure. If it helps, you can take a look.
